What we lost in the fire
by Stormvind
Summary: This is a story that ought to be told. Because we lived, laughed and loved. Because we shaped the history of the wizarding world. And because we deserve to be remembered. Marauders era, several pairings.
1. Chapter 1

**What we lost in the fire**

AN: I wanted to write one of those really epic stories. This is my attempt.

_I chose to tell you this tale because somebody ought to. I do it because we laughed, we lived and we loved and people should know. We fought, sometimes for our lives but mainly for yours. It might seem like a tale with an abrupt tragic ending, but it's really not. Because only time will tell if our sacrifices will be rewarded._

_I tell you this because we deserve to be remembered. We did our time and we did the best we could. That ought to count for something, right?_

_I tell you this tale because you will live it like we lived it. I hope you will live, laugh and love a lot. I know you will fight. I tell you this because I hope your life will be long and prosperous instead of short and brutal. If you don't learn from us and the mistakes we made, fate will force you to live through them. It's funny how fate always gets her way in the end._

_I tell you this tale because I would have loved you if I had the chance. I really would have._

_This is what we lost in the fire._


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: I'd love to know what you think of it. I might also be interested in a competent beta, write if you feel up to the job._

Lily Evans conscience flooded with guilt as her mother tearfully waved goodbye and her father hugged her tightly

The 9 ¾ platform of Kings Cross was buzzing with activity. It was the first day of the semester and the Hogwarts Express was due to leave in another twelve minutes and 36 seconds. The platform was full of young witches and wizards greeting each other or loading heavy trunks onto the train. Tearful goodbyes and write-soons were exchanged everywhere. Some had their entire family, with grandmothers and great-aunts, with them to wave them off while others came alone.

A trained eye could sense a certain feeling of caution in the air. Parents were keeping their little ones close. Distrustful glances were exchanged between families and even the students seemed to board the train in closely knitted groups.

"Be careful honey"

"Write to us if you hear any funny rumours.."

"Avoid the Slytherins, they are never good news darling…"

Yes, there was definitely caution in the air, and with good reason. The last couple of months had been characterized by reports on weird disappearances and mysterious deaths. And there was a certain rumour flying around, a rumour about a new group calling themselves the Deatheaters…

Tension was running high in the wizarding world.

Lily Evans conscience flooded with guilt as her mother tearfully waved goodbye and her father hugged her tightly. Her guilt, due to the fact that she was not nearly as sad to part with her parents as she ought to be, got worse as her heart leaped with joy at the sight of the Hogwarts Express. Of course she loved her parents, they were immensely proud of her. She liked spending time in their little townhouse in Bayswater, London, well enough despite her sister's efforts to ruin her holiday.

The problem was that Lily thought too much. Her mind ,always whirring and buzzing with activity as it analyzed everything one time too many, had come to a conclusion. The townhouse where she grew up was not home anymore. Every morning when she woke up and saw the peach coloured tapestries of her mother's choosing she had wished they were scarlet hangings in a castle far up north. Hogwarts were home, the townhouse in Bayswater was only where she visited her parents. The magic world was home, and she missed it every single moment she spent in the Muggle world where she grew up. It saddened her, because she knew her parents thought that as soon as the graduated, she would come back to them, find a place nearby and be their little baby girl again. She knew she would never be their baby girl again, and for that she felt guilty.

"So how was your summer?"

The question, casually thrown out there, remained unanswered for a while. It was not certain who it was addressing. After greeting each other and squealing in delight (some) or raising eyebrows sarcastically at the squealing (others), the Gryffindor seventh year girls had boarded the train and found a compartment.

"Oh, it was awesome. Well, bits of it anyway. You can never guess what I ended up doing! You know how I was very depressed because Dumbledore obviously doesn't like me very much and wanted me to suffer during the holidays?"

Sheena decided that the question was directed at her and answered Lily. She was stretched out on the seat with a pink lollipop in her mouth and took up a lot of space for someone really petite. Lily noted that she looked good. Her once waist-long blonde hair was gone and only a halo of golden locks remained. The new hairstyle had a certain just out of bed-quality but suited her just fine. Lily also noted that she looked buff, more than usually even. Sheena always kept in shape but her shoulders and arms were more toned now than when they parted and her fair skin had a golden tan.

Sheena's summer plans were always undecided until last minute. Her parents were long gone, and she had spent every holiday since first year with different "aunts" and "uncles", to whom she was hardly ever related. Their one thing in common was that they all seemed to owe Dumbledore favours.

"He doesn't want you to suffer" Lily said carefully as they had been through this in June.

"Whatever. He left me with aunt Muriel, who is a horrible, horrible person, and totally old, at least 80. She has a lovely niece however, Molly, she was in Gryffindor and graduated a few years ago. She came over for tea, with her two little kids, once. Can you believe she married her classmate? It is so cute! She has two brothers and…"

"Rambling much, darling? Or was having tea all you did? Because the Sheena I know would hardly call that amazing…" The slow sarcastic drawl that was patented Sophia Nott added to the conversation. She was popped up in the corner, leaning against the window and altered between looking out and following the conversation.

"Shut up. Anyway, all aunt Muriel wanted to do was to go to Thailand and drink fruity drinks and look at boys a third her age. So she dragged me along, and it was okay. Did you know that the Trace doesn't reach beyond Europe? Muriel let it slip and I suppose it's true because I haven't gotten an angry letter from the Ministry yet. Okay, back to the point, in Thailand, what to do? Well, I saw a advertisement from a Thaiboxing camp and I Confunded the trainer so they let me join!"

"You did what?!"

"A what-now camp?"

Lily could hardly pretend to be surprised after seven years, but Dorcas Meadows looked shocked, Sophia confused and Cady McMillan just mildly interested.

"It is a muggle sport. It involved a lot of hitting, I think" Lily explained to the purebloods.

"And kicking" Added Sheena, positively glowing. "It was great, I spent a month there and a month by the poolside, with Sin Tak, a lovely boy who gave me massages and brought me drinks. You would like the Thai wizards Lily, all they ever do is making potions. It was boring, and I didn't understand a word they said so me and aunt Muriel mainly stayed with the Muggles"

"Well, you doesn't seem to be dead or dying so it must have been better than you thought it would be. How about you Cady?"

Watching Cadithia McMillan was certainly a peculiar experience. She was very petite and popped up in the corner her small frame only filled about half a seat. Perhaps she could be called pretty, with pale skin and auburn fluffy curls but what really draw people's attention was her eyes. The huge dark eyes were constantly moving in and out of focus. Cady would in the midst of a conversation stare at a point half a meter to the left of your head with a shocked expression. Or she would let out a surprised little gasp during the most dull lecture ever experienced. Sometimes she seemed to be lost to the world and it would take several minutes to catch her attention. She didn't talk much and it was hard to say if she listened or not, but sometimes she would give people little bits of advice or warnings. This all combined led many to drawing the conclusion that she was absolutely nutters.

Of course Lily had been the one to figure it out. Always one to connect dots, she had let out a shocked gasp right after Cady had let out a shocked gasp sometime in third year. Then she had asked "You are a seer, aren't you?" and everything seemed to fall into place.

"Well, yes I would suppose I am" Cady had answered indifferently. Ever since then Cady had been considered mostly sane and sometimes useful. They had soon found out that she had absolutely no control of what she saw and hardly could tell them what would come up on the next exam but they had also learnt to always take her warnings seriously.

"It was relaxing. I spent some time with my grandparents and met the strangest boy, Xenophilius. He told me I had nargles in my hair" Cady looked slightly confused at the thought of nargles.

"Oh my God! Cady met a boy!" Dorcas exclaimed clearly thrilled.

It was hard to shock, surprise or scare Cady McMillan. She took every surprise with the same expression of mild interest as always. Dorcas Meadows however, liked to have a little bit of drama to liven things up every now and then. Dorcas was a friendly, nice and constantly underestimated person. Surrounded by charismatic or sometimes plain weird friends, it was easy to overlook somebody who settled for being good person. Even though she wasn't smart like Lily, gutsy like Sheena, mean like Sophia or special the way Cady was special, Dorcas prided herself in other abilities. She was determined, she followed through and she would do anything for the people she cared about. In many ways she was more of a true Gryffindor than any of the other girls. And those who overlooked her usually paid for it during Defence Against Dark Arts, because the only person who could take her in a duel was Sheena and Sheena had the benefit of being slightly crazy.

They chatted away for the rest of the ride about Cady's possible love interest or if Sheena finally got hit over the head one time too many. The lovely snack lady stopped by with her trolley and sweets were bought and shared.

Sophia felt her eyes start to get heavy. She was really comfortable and that was a rare thing. At her parents everything was strict and stiff, the chairs were uncomfortable but good looking and the big rooms had really cold floors. She hadn't slept well since leaving Hogwarts. Sophia decided to rest her eyes for a little while and immediately fell asleep with her dark brown hair semi-covering her face. She was tall and willowy with high cheekbones and forehead and very light green eyes. Most people considered her a mean, scary person but Sophia argued that if they insisted on breathing her air they would have to withstand a few insults. She spoke with a slow drawl laced with sarcasm, no matter how sinister she were for the moment. However, there were people she both admired and liked. Lily for example, had a mind that kept impressing Sophia seven years into their education. She processed data like some kind of machine and Sophia always wondered how she managed to keep it all in her head. She supposed she really did love Sheena, in a completely non-sugary way. She considered McGonagall the best teacher to ever walk the earth but found Dumbledore a bit too peculiar. Dumbledore always seemed to know and understand a little too much, something Sophia was very uncomfortable with. Because she had not always been the girl who could make the first years cry.

When Sophia first came to Hogwarts she was excited and curious girl with two dark pigtails, eager to learn and experience. She arrived with her twin brother Solomon and another little girl, Cassandra Rosier. Cassandra had been her neighbour, confidant and best friend for as long as Sophia could remember. Their parents were close friends and the girls had altered between playing at the Rosier Manor and the Nott Manor for as long as either of them could remember. Sophia was afraid of the dark and would on some nights sneak out of her window, run over the lawn and climb the fence into the Rosier garden. Then she would climb the old oak, knock on Cassie's window, slip into the warmth of her friends bed and sleep peacefully until Mrs Rosier would wake them. They had fantasized about how going to Hogwarts would be ever since Sophia's older brother Theodore left for school when Sophia was five.

When Cassie was sorted into Gryffindor, Sophia demanded that the Sorting Hat would place her there too, even though her parents always said Slytherin was the best. Sophia's parents were not too excited about their daughter's House and Solomon, who got sorted into Slytherin, was the favourite twin ever since. But Sophia never regretted her plea to the Hat, the girls were inseparable also in school and got along good with their other housemates too. Sophia would still sometimes sneak into her friend's bed during dark nights.

Sophia loved school. She didn't miss her family terribly, like some first years did, because her family was Cassie and they were never parted. She did fairly good in her classes and found that she had quite a knack for charms. First and second year went bye so quickly, thinking back she would wonder where all the days went.

But Fate can be cruel. Cassandra left Hogwarts after her second years and never returned for her third. Sophia, having spent a few days at her grandparent's, returned home to find her mother looking like she was about to be sick. She told her daughter, newly turned thirteen, to please sit down and went on to explain how Cassie had been killed in a tragic magical accident under uncertain circumstances.

The pain was as distinct as if a limb had been ripped from her body but she didn't cry. Sophia never cried for Cassie. She didn't do anything either. Days became weeks and Sophia lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She would nibble at the sandwiches their elf Mimy brought her every once in a while and sometimes went to the bathroom. September approached and on the first Sophia got up, dressed and grabbed a few necessary items. She went down and asked her parents for a ride in a monotone voice. Sophia Nott returned to Hogwarts, but the carefree, happy child Sophia left as in June would never return.

If a love that had been hers for her entire life could be ripped from her in a moment, what love would not? She decided that it just wasn't worth the risk and never bothered to get close to anyone again.

Most people accepted that the dark haired Gryffindor girl wanted to be left alone and was dreadfully mean when confronted. She had a few rows with Lily, especially when she picked on the younger students. Dorcas sometimes glanced at her sorrowfully when she thought Sophia didn't notice and Cady would just look at her with a sad little smile and Sophia knew she saw a younger happier girl. But for most of the time the girls left her alone, except for Sheena. She was just seemingly incapable to back down from a fight or to let an insult slip. They were at each other for two entire years, like two bitches in heat. Not a week would pass by without at least a dual and probably a fistfight too, and of course endless scorn. Sheena would call Sophia "the bitch mother of all little bitches" and Sophia would retort with "little blonde ditzy lunatic" and the rest of the Gryffindors were so tired of them that Lily invented the _Muffiliato_-charm just to block out their voices.

The turning point came when Sheena got into a row with the two years older Bellatrix in her fourth year. Sheena was a good fighter, best in her year. She had been trained by her auror mother until her death and then by assorted "aunts" and "uncles" during her summer holidays. But Bellatrix was talented, more experienced and seemingly without any conscience at all and Sheena was only barely holding her own. Sophia could not, three years later, explain why she did it but she came to her nemesis defence.

To say that the girls were inseparable from that moment would be to push it beyond the breaking point. But something had changed. They still didn't like each other much but had come to the conclusion that they made a impressive team and might benefit from cooperating. Sometimes. When nobody was watching.

They had both lost a lot during their few years and they recognized something in each other that they seemed to share with few others. A kind of bitterness over the cards that life dealt them, a desperation that came from not really giving a shit. It took time and a lot of bickering but somehow they grew close over the years and bonds of friendship are ties that bind.

But none of this disturbed Sophia's dreamless sleep as the Hogwarts Express continued up north, bringing all of them home.

The sorting ceremony and the feast that followed were a familiar ritual to the seventh years. But before the food was served Dumbledore held a speech in which he said the expected welcoming words but also a few sentences that would stay in their minds for quite some time.

"My dear students, I wish you all happiness and prosperity long after your school years are over. But I fear that life as you know it is about to change for many of you. Time will tell if I am right in my worries but until we can dismiss them as an old mans foolishness, I would like you to carry these words with you. Dark times might be approaching, but these are the times that defines us. These are the times that defines us." He sighed and looked out over his horn-rimmed glasses.

"Now, let the feast begin."


	3. Chapter 3

Her gaze followed his gaze and of course they both ended up on her

Her gaze followed his gaze and of course they both ended up on her. Dorcas wondered sometimes if he suspected she used to watch him. But why would he? A lot of people watched him, mainly girls, and some of them were constantly throwing their selves at him and trying desperately to catch his attention. Dorcas barely talked to him, except for exchanging pleasantries and sometimes as partners in class. He would never know that he was the only one she ever thought about, the only one she dreamed about and the only boy Dorcas ever watched. She was nice and pretty and there was probably countless of perfectly nice boys who would date her and in fact she got asked out pretty. She went on perfectly nice dates with the perfectly nice boys, but whenever things started getting serious, Dorcas turned them down. Because, in comparison to Sirius Black, they all paled. He was not one of the perfectly nice boys, Dorcas even suspected that he wasn't that nice at all. Sirius was sort of… wild. He didn't seem to care about getting into trouble or getting hurt and she would never forget how he duelled three Slytherins at once, in front of Filch nonetheless. The kind of person you suspected would live hard and die young, break many girls' hearts and keep none.

No wonder he would watch her. Sheena had her feet popped up on the chair next to hers and waved her wand lazily, making her mascara brush paint her eyelashes while she sipped on a cup of hot cocoa. She was apparently not a morning person because she wore a grumpy expression that seemed to warn anyone except for those brave ones she knew well, from approaching her. Her hair was a mess and her skirt showed a little too much of her golden thigh. Dorcas couldn't help but let her gaze linger. She always wore her skirts decently long, but to Sheena O´Siephen, decency just wasn't an issue.

Dorcas wasn't jealous, even though her obsession was currently watching another girl with hunger in his eyes. She loved Sheena, like she did all her friends. Sometimes she wondered if Sheena even knew how many girls there were at Hogwarts who would give up their wand to have him look at them like that.

Since Dorcas watched Sirius, she had also closely followed his and Sheena's marathon flirting, from fourth to seventh year. They didn't flirt anything like normal people did, Dorcas thought. Potter, for example, would keep trying to impress Lily, and Remus although generally nice was being nice towards Sophia, who nobody bothered to be nice to anymore. Sheena and Sirius on the other hand, were never nice to each other. Their flirting seemed to be more of a dare, where the first to back down, to admit that the sexual tension was too much, would be the chicken. And none of them would ever back down from a dare. Sheena would climb Sirius' lap and start whispering in his ear and as soon as he admit that it got to him, she had won. Unless he started whispering back and succeeded at making her blush. But if they flirted it generally meant they didn't hate each other for the moment. Much. Dorcas had seen, shocked and amused, everything from a duel to a fistfight. Dorcas had never even been in a fistfight.

Sheena was in a bad mood. They were barely one week into the term and the early mornings were already getting to her. She had woken up half an hour later than planned, and had to race down to the Great Hall to eat breakfast. Without breakfast her day was doomed. She did her makeup at the table, waving her wand and making her Monsieur Melanour's Multilasting Mascara (spellproof and potionresistant) paint her eyelashes while her lipgloss hang hovering in the air, waiting for her to quit chewing. A fourth year girl across the table looked about to comment on something, but one single I'm-going-to-eat-you-alive-glare from Sheena made her decide otherwise. However, some were seemingly immune to such glares.

"Why are you all bad moody?" Lily asked. Ever the morning person, she had risen two hours previously to do her morning toilet and catch up on some Head Girl business. She was in a great mood and when Potter had complimented her on looking nice, she had actually thought it was sweet and said thanks, instead of hexing him or telling him to bugger off.

"Potter, the great wanker, is threatening to throw me off the team" Sheena played seeker for the Gryffindor team and James Potter was the captain.

"But you guys won last year, and you caught the snitch in all but one game?"

"I know! It is so totally unfair. He says that my lack of enthusiasm is affecting the moral of the team and that I don't show up for practice. Have you ever heard of such shite? I like Quidditch well enough, I'm just not obsessed on the edge of beeing psychotic about it like some people, and I don't really care about the Cuddling Canons or the Holier Harps or whatever they're called these days. I mean, just because…"

Lily decided to interrupt the rant, knowing from experience that it could go on for quite some time.

"He had a point with the whole not-showing-up-for-practice-argument though"

"I do… sometimes. Its just he keeps scheduling practise insanely early in the morning or on all the rainy days in November. It's unhealthy, really"

"So go talk to him, explain how you feel" Lily silently wondered why she kept giving perfectly reasonable advice to people she knew weren't going to follow it, or be reasonable for that matter.

"I did. I told him I felt like kicking his ass from here to Yorkshire. I bloody hope he kicks me off the team, I will enjoy his fruitless attempts at finding a better seeker immensely" Sheena wore the expression of a five year old not getting cookie.

"You really are a spoiled brat, you know" Sophia added to the conversation without looking up from the Daily Prophet she was reading.

"Am not!"

"Actually, you are a little bit. Everything is so easy for you" Sophia still talked to her newspaper.

"I can't believe we're having this ridiculous discussion again" Lily rolled her eyes. They had been over how Sheena managed to get good grade with seemingly minimum effort a couple of times every year. Eventually they had pinpointed it down to a mix between sweet talking the teachers and having a good memory.

"Don't you have to go for a smoke or offer a child to the devil or whatever it is you do?" Sheena asked Sophia after looking at her watch. They had a tradition since last year of spending ten minutes before first period right outside one of the minor entrances. Sheena and sometimes Lily would watch as Sophia smoked and reflect on the coming day, their love lives, their ridiculous amount of homework or any other topic of discussion.

"I suppose" Sophia said and finished her coffee.

"I'll come with"

"I'll come to. My charms essay will have to do without another reread" Sheena and Sophia rolled their eyes simultaneously at Lily, knowing for sure that her essay had been reread and corrected to perfection already.

The three girls exited the Great Hall followed by the eyes of another little Gryffindor group. Sighs were heard from the boys who had been having their breakfast a couple of chairs away from the girls.

"I love how her hair glows when the sun hits it. It looks like fire" James Potter, Gryffindor chaser, captain and shockingly also Head Boy looked slightly dazed.

"I love how short she wears her skirts. She must really have been working out this summer. I mean, you don't get an ass like that from nothing" Sirius Black, first and foremost Gryffindor bad boy but also beater followed the bum belonging to a certain blonde with his gaze.

"James you big ponce, I swear you get cheesier every time you see Lily. And Sirius, ewww"

"Moony you big hypocrite, I saw you looking too" Sirius enjoyed how his usually calm and collected friend blushed slightly.

"Like copper, or tiger lilies…."

"Snap out of it James!" Remus Lupin, werewolf, prefect and bad boy in disguise tried to divert attention.

"Really Moony, who were you looking at? Because I can see how anyone would admire such a fine piece of ass but its eyes only on Sheena. And you know James would hex you if you as much as complimented Evans on her sweater" Sirius was determined to investigate this further. Since Remus' break up with the Ravenclaw Amanda Brown last fall, he had yet to date anyone seriously.

The break up had been a messy affair. Amanda and Remus had been going out for a couple of months and were getting along great when Amanda, being a bright Ravenclaw, started wondering why Remus got sick every month around full moon. Remus was a werewolf and had until then only trusted his closest friends with his secret. But when Amanda pressured him to come clean, he did and put faith in their relationship being strong enough. Amanda however had not reacted the way he had hoped. Shocked and clearly disgusted she ended it quickly and told him never to approach her again. Only two days later James found her snogging the sixth year Slytherin Solomon Nott.

Remus had been devastated over her reaction and feared that Amanda might spread his secret. The Marauders had to resort to drastic methods in preventing her from doing that. Researching advanced and highly illegal magic they had found a way to prevent Amanda from sharing any personal information about Remus through a specifically targeted tongue tier curse.

But even with his secret safe and protected, the experience was hard on Remus. Except for the other Marauders, only Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey knew about his condition and they had always treated him fairly. He knew hypothetically how werewolves were treated in English wizarding society but to have a first hand experience of the hate, fear and disgust was another story.

"I can admire a fine view just as much as the next bloke, right? Doesn't mean I'm interested or anything"

"Amen to that" A voice behind Sirius added.

"Pete! Where the hell have you been? We're supposed to be planning you-know-what!" James glared at the new arrival, Peter Pettigrew.

Peter Pettigrew smiled and winked at a pretty Hufflepuff sixth year with whom he had been having breakfast. Peter had once been a quite chubby kid but had grown like boys do and had filled out rather nicely. He still was a little on the short side but burly and broad shouldered. He might not be as handsome as his friends, but he had a nice slightly round face with a really contagious smile. People sometimes wondered why Peter was included in the group of loud daring Gryffindors known as the Marauders. He didn't have very good grades and struggled in several subjects, commonly aided by his friends. He wasn't an athlete like James, bad boyishly sexy as Sirius or as intelligent as Remus.

But Peter was the glue, he made sure the three sometimes very different boys got along. He was be the one to make Remus apologize to James after asking Lily out in fifth year. He could make Sirius calm down when Sirius' eyes would go from grey to black and they all knew he thought of his family and childhood and would in a second come up with some daring plan that was just too dangerous and flawed. Peter had an uncanny knack for knowing if a plan would work out or if the consequences would be too dire. He beat them all in chess and told them to think more strategically. And lately, Peter had been dating more girls than even Sirius.

"What happened to bros before hoes?" Sirius winked at Peter, not really mad. He found it entertaining that his friend were getting a reputation as a womanizer.

"Full moon is in three days, we have stuff to do. We got to make sure no one gets detention on Friday or Saturday and you have to come up with an excuse for me to get out of my Head Boy duties. It had to be good too, it's for Lily." James had decided to begin his new life as an organized person with some serious organizing.

"Every time you say Head Boy my mind goes blank and all I see is James slowly morphing into Dextrius Smith. It is horrifying really" Sirius shuddered.

Dextrius had been last year's Head Boy, a rather pompous Hufflepuff. He had shared the Head Dormitories with Head Girl Sandra Greengrass, a beautiful Slytherin.

"Remember when he tried to give us detention? We were to clean the Head Dormitories!" Peter laughed at the memory. It had been one of the most enjoyable detentions they had ever experienced.

"Oh yes, what an idiot Smith were…"

"That concealment charm you used to hide the stack of Dungbombs was a very impressive piece of magic Moony"

"Why thank you, Padfoot. Your _Timius Regardus_ was not too bad either"

They had had a good forty minutes to cause mayhem and they surely had. While Peter dyed all Smith's clothes Gryffindor scarlet, Remus had cast a strong concealment charm over a stack of Dungbombs located under Smith's bed. Sirius had then used a clever little charm taught by Flitwick only a week previously to make one Dungbomb go off every night at midnight. James had been busy redoing all the decorations and hangings from Hufflepuff yellow too Gryffindor red, with little golden details. They all finished off the work by writing "The Marauders were here" on the wall with ever-lasting ink.

"Smith always smelled a little like Dungbombs after that."

"I think the golden details were a nice touch. Didn't know you had it in you Prongs" Sirius smirked.

"Guess what, guys? Dumbledore let our little message remain. It's still on the wall" James smiled at the memory. Those had been good times.

"Fitting, since a Marauder now resides there. I think the Head Dormitories are an overlooked resource. You know how we always have trouble finding deserted classrooms or something for experimenting and such? And we can't do any planning in our dorm because of Will and Carl usually pop in. We can do anything without being disturbed or interrupted in the Head Dorms." Remus said.

"It's true! A place like that would have been great in fourth year. Remember all the protection spells we had to use to avoid anyone walking in on us studying?"

The four boys mused on the usefulness of the Head Dorms, or Head Quarters as they decided to call it. It was during their third year at Hogwarts they had found out about Remus' "little furry problem" as James usually put it. It was a combination of living extremely close and a period of studying werewolves in class which had led growing suspicion among James, Peter and Sirius. When they confronted Remus about it he told the truth and to his surprise, they didn't oppose him like he had feared they would. Quite the opposite, they began pondering how they could make his transformations easier for him. A sunny day in May, Sirius had looked up from their Transfiguration textbook with glittering eyes and a slightly mad smile.  
"I know how we're going to do it. We're going to become animagi"

Their entire fourth year went to researching and experimenting with magic far above their level. The Marauders had never previously spent so much time in the library and the school was a far more calm and peaceful place than usually. They buries themselves in ancient books, they practised the incantations at each other and brewed illegal potions in empty toilet stalls. They fell behind with their homework and some of the professors commented on how their magic seemed to have matured over their age. The process of becoming an animagus was a long, tiring and painful business, but at the end of forth year, about a year after Sirius' mad smile they had done it. Three illegal unregistered animagi ran the school grounds, a stag, a dog and a rat. To each other, they were now Prongs, Padfoot, Moony and Wormtail. The Marauders were born.

To Sirius they were more family than his biological would ever be. He had always been the misbehaving one, a wild kid with no manners. But it wasn't until he had been sorted into Gryffindor "for extraordinary bravery" as the Hat put it, his parents had declared open hostility towards their oldest son. He would return home to be met with cold resentment and "disciplinary actions" as his mother lovingly put it. It basically meant that they would lock him in his room, give him minimum food and torture him a bit whenever Mrs Black had had one glass too many.

If this treatment was designed to make Sirius see the error of his ways it failed miserable. He became more disobedient every time he returned to school after summer and his pranks and mischief got wilder and more dangerous. His hatred towards the "pure-blood maniacs", the children he played with as a little kid, Slytherins, grew. He'd get into fight with entire groups of Slytherins and his friends would back him up, causing unmanageable duals with dozens of participators at a time. His reputation as a bad boy grew and he lost more points from Gryffindor than anyone during his third year.

When the summer came after his third year Sirius had had enough. He returned home and when his mother slapped him and tried to throw him into his room he decided that the Trace be damned. He stunned his mother, grabbed a couple of necessities and flew on his broom to the Potters. Mr and Mrs Potter had never bothered with any of that "pure-blood crap" and had heard about his current situation from their son. They welcomed him to stay with them for the breaks. He always enjoyed his summers ever since but to say that they were like the parents he never had would be to push it. The damage had already been done, the trust was broken and the innocence was gone. At the age of 14 Sirius Black was no longer a child.

James and Peter left the breakfast table. James to talk to Lily about some Head business before class and Peter to get his Potions book he left in their dormitory. First period was double Potions with the Hufflepuff and he wanted to get to class early and have a seat next to the pretty Hufflepuff he had been having breakfast with, Camilla Gregory.

Sirius and Remus lingered. Remus was a little bit pale and had dark circles under his eyes and had only had a cup of coffee. Full moon was approaching. Sirius was moody and snapped at a fifth year who reached for the bread basket. His gaze lingered almost longingly at the place a couple of seats down where the girls had been having breakfast earlier.

"Stupid bitch…." He muttered under his breath.


End file.
